


what it means (i am the last of my kind)

by GeraldTheFabulousGiraffe



Series: ell aska semal seem-sa [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Child Abandonment, Gen, Giant Mermaids, Major Original Character(s), Mermaids, Museums, Nonbinary Character, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Mythology, Skeletons, but still, is there a tag for confronting the desecrated skeleton of your mother in a museum?, it’s unwilling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28517898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeraldTheFabulousGiraffe/pseuds/GeraldTheFabulousGiraffe
Summary: “A cry worthy of the last child of the ageless oceans shakes the earth. Tears and neurotoxin drip from her eyes, streaking over the stark black clan markings of their eyes.”In which Ceru Excratere, child of Indigo and Avery Excratere, is a very different from Cerulean, last of the Stormmakers — though they are both the same person.An exercise in coming to terms with being the last of your kind.EDIT : age edited to be more accurate to my timeline because your local gay can’t do maths
Relationships: Ceru & the skeleton of her mother, Ceru Excratere & Cerulean the Stormmaker, Original Character & Original Character
Series: ell aska semal seem-sa [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2058528
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	what it means (i am the last of my kind)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noodlebunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlebunny/gifts).



> This is the backstory of one of the main characters in the ‘Other World’ universe, Ceru.
> 
> Ceru uses she/they pronouns, and has chronic pain!
> 
> Here’s the playlist for the character — https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3W6A6OVQ75OxOv3xO4WlrU?si=aYy2GzgWSR6nLOrJZd2qHA
> 
> As always, more info on her and the ‘verse can be found on my tumblr for the latter — @just-a-tree-i-guess
> 
> Enjoy, and practise self care afterwards!
> 
> (Also, go check out my good friend’s tumblr @pakchoys! Give her the love she deserves!)

Cerulean does not remember what it’s like to see faces like theirs. She knows she is small and lithe for their age, but only from the tapestries on the Library walls. They run their hands over the woven figures sometimes, hoping that someday she shall find them. She knows they are the last of her kind, and it burns.

It burns like the funeral pyres of their avian cousins, choking her like oil in the water. It is a type of pain that cannot be described. She dwarfs all she meets, when in their true form, but they still feel the spectres of their kind shadowing her with their bulk.

To nearly all she meets, she is simply  _ Ceru  _ — unwilling to provoke the spirit of the mother who named them. 

The people who knew of her kind, as they used to be, named them  _ Stormmaker _ , and  _ Sea Witch _ , and  _ Shipsinker.  _ Her family’s name is spoken only in hushed legend between fearful sailors on angry seas. There are next-to-none in living memory who remember the largest of the sirens as they were; those that do keep it hidden between lock and key, under strong rock, and stronger spells.

As a pup, wandering the streets of a desolate America, blue skin and black fin shrouded in a human cloak, they had wondered often as to the whereabouts of her pod, why she had awoken on a polluted shore, only a mere 127 years old, alone. Alone, in the way a siren should never be. A toddler, were they human. Snapping at the scraps dockworkers would leave behind, sobbing at the noise — far too much for her over sensitive fins. Scrabbling at the ground with her claws, hoping to scrape away the clunky stone, to feel the dirt on her skin, the  _ life _ . Every time she managed to reach it, however, it was dead and smothered, leaking poison so different from her own. There, streaked with tears and dust alike, Ceru would curl into herself, petting at their hair like they imagined their pod might have.

Nothing like the grandeur her ancestors had revelled in.

There was none to teach her how to sing a storm to being, to grow glaciers with a thought. No webbed hand, no steady tail, to guide them safely through the great currents of the universe. Alone and often bleeding, she tumbled into parallel worlds and distant times, ignorant and unknowing. Earthquakes and hurricanes, uncontrolled and deadly, whirled in their blood, charging through her veins until all she could do was unleash them and let them run free. How were they to know their roar could summon tsunamis? All they had to go on was a few lullabies and screaming instincts.

As a pup in the first couple stages of life, Cerulean had been sung to, as was tradition. Not only would it get them used to the sound, it would encourage the pups to mimic, to join the chorus that would become their most dangerous weapon, their most beloved gift. A siren’s song is strung through their bonds, made more captivating with each one. Layers of magic, from each soul, woven into the perfect blanket of unshakeable power.

As a pup in the next few decades of their life, Cerulean had no one to join her choir. A single voice when it should’ve been amongst hundreds. 

But even they, lonely as they were, would have taken the haunted silence over the truth.

A skeleton large enough to engulf her entirely, and still be empty enough to starve, hangs from the museum’s ceiling. The gargantuan bones are all that is left of the last of Aska’s priesthood. The rib cage throws writhing shadows across the walls and floor, until every step they take is one confined by a ghost. The eye sockets alone could fit her whole hand in, bare though they are. 

She is so close, but even at their mighty nine-and-three-quarter metres, the claws of her hand would still fall short. A leap would only damage the floor. Cerulean would still be no closer. 

A cry worthy of the last child of the ageless oceans shakes the earth. Tears and neurotoxin drip from her eyes, streaking over the stark black clan markings of their eyes.

Even from the floor, they can see the unnatural straightness of the forearms; the fins have long been shorn away. Her arms ache, chronic pain crying out in sympathy. In the back of her mind, she wonders what could have possibly downed one of their kind, stolen those fins adorned with tattoos and jewellery — a ritual they shall never be able to partake in. 

It hits them then, that they are truly the last of their kind. Never shall she know how she is supposed to grow, to be, from one that has lived it. They have the books sealed behind the Library’s walls, safe and unchanging. But they cannot comfort her, in her true form, the way a parent could. 

Their size will always tower over all others, none to cast her in their shadow, apart from this lifeless remnant. They are alone, and she always shall be. 

To anyone who meets her, they are Ceru, helpful Atlantic siren.

Yet here, she is Cerulean, roaring in agony at their legacy.


End file.
